52 Weeks
by ColgateKiss
Summary: Post Reichenbach. John is going through the classic phases of grief ... badly. Divided into four parts, this fic chronicles his progress week by week, the reconstruction of life without Sherlock. Can John possibly find a happy ending? Warning: BIG angst.
1. Chapter 1

**52 Weeks (Sherlock/John, 1/4)**

Title: 52 Weeks

Fandom: Sherlock BBC

Pairing(s): Sherlock/John

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: death, depression, and the like.

Word Count: 1,822

Disclaimer: I borrow them, I don't own them.

Post Reichenbach. Sherlock is dead; John is going through the classic phases of grief ... badly. Divided into four parts, this fic chronicles his progress week by week, the reconstruction of his life without Sherlock. Can John possibly find a happy ending?

**Spring**

**1**

_Immediately after the death, survivors may experience a wish to 'do something' for the sake of the dead person. An elaborate funeral, or even a simple service held 'the way they would have wanted it' often satisfies this need._

Mycroft allows John to choose the tombstone. Which he does, an automaton, moving blankly around what's on offer as if he were choosing new kitchen units.

The salesman asks, "Whose it for? Your mum? Sorry, I can usually tell, you look that sort of age."

John has seen better deductions ...

He chooses a tombstone he thinks would suit Sherlock. Suit Sherlock? It isn't a fucking _coat_.

The undertakers have a trolley, covered in a black cloth. John, with Mycroft, helps to place the coffin there. They place two wreaths of lilies on the top.

John can't think of Sherlock in the box. And can't watch the box go up in flames.

**2**

"There is just _one more_ thing ,just _one more miracle Sherlock_, just for me, stop being dead, would you?" John hears his voice cracking. There's nothing there, just dead, dead air. "Just for me, stop it, stop this."

Oppressive silence, piling up against John's chest. John remembers that it isn't even Sherlock's body under the ground - it's just his ash. There's no resurrection from dust.

It begins to drizzle. John believes the world is weeping.

He tries to get a taxi, realises there is nothing in his pockets but his fists, walks the five miles back to 221B.

There, he stands in the middle of the sitting room. So much bleaker than before, he now notices the peeling paint, the layers upon layers of dust, the dull and yellow light. The flat feels so small, so lonely, huddled against the world.

The clock doesn't chime. Rain breaks on the window. John traces a hand over the table, taskless, quite lost, a moth without a flame.

**3**

Mycroft visits. Why?

John offers him a cup of tea, but when he opens the fridge he discovers there is nothing in there but ... the head. He closes the fridge gently.

Mycroft makes do with a glass of water, in a suspiciously smudged glass.

"You haven't been eating, John." he steeples his fingers under his chin, and looks at John intently.

John looks away. He can't _see_ that.

The next day, the head is gone and the fridge is groaning at the seems, filled with fresh food. John's eyes prick. He wants the head back. Sherlock would be most irritated.

**4**

He meets Harry for coffee. He doesn't ask if she is still on the wagon. Doesn't give two fucks, to be honest.

Harry tried to talk about Sherlock. John responds with selective mutism.

She sighs, "John, love. You know, around a third of all people seeking psychotherapy are there because they are having difficulty getting over the death of a loved one."

Her tone is soothing, calm. John wants to punch her teeth out.

She slides a card across the table, "I spoke to this lady on the phone. She seemed nice. Understanding."

"Understand this," John stands up with such force his chair crashes backwards, "I don't want help in getting over this, because I don't _want_ to get over this. Just ... let me be."

And he stalks out into the cold, wrapping his coat - and his grief - around him.

**5**

Mycroft, surprisingly, is more helpful.

He visits on a Thursday afternoon. John has been lying on the sofa, wearing Sherlock's dressing gown. Mycroft notices - of course he does - but doesn't comment.

"Here, have a book."

Mycroft tosses it across the room where it lands at John's feet.

He picks it up, "Symptomology and Management of Acute Grief. I wasn't aware that my grief was ... acute."

Mycroft smirks, "Acute and about to become chronic, I believe."

Before he leaves, Mycroft looks around the flat, "I'll send someone around to clean."

"Don't touch Sherlock's room. If, if - " his empty threat is left unsaid, as Mycroft nods,

"I understand."

**6**

John has run out of things to talk about, because his life has shrunk down around him, almost to nothing.

So he takes a book, Wonders of the Solar System.

"Right then, Sherlock. Astronomy. It's never too late to learn!" he laughs weakly, and settles himself down, legs crossed, next to the tombstone.

It's windswept and chilly, but a brave winter sun has come forth to join them. John has a flask of tea, which he sips intermittently.

"Does Xena have any moons?"

"One, I think, hang on I'll look it up - yes, Gabrielle."

"And Jupiter?"

"Loads. More than sixty. But most are tiny."

It's alright, John has discovered, to talk to the dead in a graveyard. However John doubts that anyone but Sherlock is talking _back_.

**7**

The unsolved crime rate in London has risen by 22%

John reads this is The Guardian, and smiles. Scotland Yard deserves it, the turncoats.

Lestrade calls the evening after the article comes out. John is silent on the phone.

"John," Lestrade begins, "I ... "

John presses 'End'.

"I will not", he whispers between gritted teeth, "Absolve you."

He leans against the window, staring into the night. Sometimes he thinks the night stares back.

Abandoned fox cubs yelp. Once upon a time he would have helped. Now, he'll let them die.

He makes a cup of tea, wraps a blanket round his legs, and sobs without reason in the dark.

**8**

_The mourner may feel numb in all emotions._

John has taken to sleeping in Sherlock's bed.

He curls in foetally, and completely submerges himself underneath the duvet. _Sherlock._

This is now the only way he can find to sleep, cocooned here, the only place in the world that still_ feels_ like Sherlock.

**9**

It has been nine weeks, of course things have changed.

Mycroft's staff came by and cleaned the flat. Though they tried not to disturb too much, John can see , Sherlock's papers are not scattered as artfully as they once were. And the violin is at a different angle to the window.

He spends an hour trying to recreate it's position before giving up, having worried himself to tears.

It hurts him, to see the marks that Sherlock made melt away. Once all evidence of him is gone, what will John have left?

_I was so alone, and I owe you so much._

Once all of Sherlock is gone, every mote, every proof, John will be alone again. The thought terrifies him.

**10**

_After the initial shock comes a period of intense sadness, and the grieving person may withdraw from social contact._

John begins drawing the chain on the door to 221B, to keep Mrs Hudson out, despite her master key. He no longer answers Mycroft's calls. Sarah's phone calls and then, Sarah's increasingly desperate banging on the door, are tuned out.

He goes for a long, long walk each morning, just after dawn. Keeping himself in gear, ready for when - _for what?_ Nothing, just ... ready.

He sees the morning tide of commuters rocking the cold chest of the train, milky light making ghosts of their faces. They appear to hug each other, they are so close.

_I want to hold, and be held by you, like that._

**11**

Leaving the flat becomes like dipping a foot into an icy, rolling sea. John dreads everything but his invisible morning walk, hates being forced to go to the bank, the pharmacy, the doctor.

He feels old, creaking, the coming days an expanse of excruciatingly slow dying. Every day death robs him a little more: during dinner, which is tasteless. In the shower which without him noticing, is scalding his skin. Each morning, when he wakes and cannot hear footsteps from the other room. It is in the silent screen of his phone. It is in the still bow of the violin.

_Nothing left to take, no one else to love. No one to recollect me through grief._

John rings his own voicemail.

"John. I'm in All Saints, you must come quickly. Bring a bottle opener, some rope and a heavy book. This is Sherlock. Holmes."

John smiles faintly, gazing off into the distance. He puts the phone on speaker, and listens again. And again.

The world becomes dark.

And again.

**12**

John visits his mother, in Winchester. Sarah had been coming round daily, standing outside the door reading out 'happy news' from the Metro, and he needed to escape.

Judith Watson had never met Sherlock, had only been vaguely aware her son was living with some flatmate or other, who died, horribly. She hadn't managed to attend the funeral. John had said he was fine. Sad, shocked, but fine.

Thus, it was a shock when she opened the door to a John who was two stone lighter than her memory - almost emaciated - whose fingernails were bitten beyond the quick, whose eyes were red and sore.

"Oh, my dear boy, what on earth has happened to you?"

She's his mother, so of course she manages to extract some information from him.

"Sherlock was ... astonishing," John rubs his eyes and gives her an exhausted smile.

"I was broken. He fixed me," he bites his lip, "Now I'm broken again. Differently. But worse."

She doesn't know how to make it ok. So she makes him a hot water bottle, and puts him to bed in his old room, surrounded by Enid Blyton books. He sleeps, that's something.

**13**

John's driving home from his mother's when it happened. He stopped at a pub in Eastleigh, intending to have just one solitary pint. It didn't quite go that way. At some point since Sherlock's death he's become unable to just stop.

He finally understands how it is for Harry. The slow, teasing loosening of tension in his back, then his mind, as he drinks. The buffer against the world as he becomes unable to process pain ... it's addictive.

He drives through the New Forest, at dusk. His blood is dancing with alcohol. The branches overhead hanging like great gallows, a ship's rigging, antlers in the dark swinging, disembodied.

The deer springs blindly from the trees, an arc of flesh and fur and fear, the hot sharp stink of deer in heat. The wet sluice of blood as, too slow to react, both collide.

After the scream (his? the deer's?) John sits, breathing heavily, hands still clutching the wheel. He wants to get out of the car, look, see if the deer is dead or not.

He can't. Can't see a broken body on the road. Can't. Can't even start the car and drive past. He closes his eyes, and scrabbles for the door. Turns, walks back the way he came, into the dark.

John's heart is broken. This is not backed up by science, but in every other respect, it's true.


	2. Chapter 2

**14**

Even after a thorough, scalding shower, he can still somehow smell blood. His hands shake for three days.

John diagnoses himself with shock. And post traumatic stress disorder.

He write himself a prescription for Valium. The pharmacist doesn't meet his eye as she fills it, and hands over the drugs.

He almost, _almost _takes up his cane, convinces himself of pain. Instead he opens the violin case, and plucks the strings gently.

He has no appetite. He creeps painfully around the flat like an animal dragging a steel trap.

Looking in the mirror, he sees the shadow of a new face: a strange mutation of the familiar John, spliced with Other.

**15**

John trails into the kitchen wearing one sock.

He does the usual preparations. One cup.

Catches himself, his eyes widen, staring at the cup in astonishment. One cup.

No. No no. He gets another cup. Brews another cup of tea - steaming water pours, swirling, mingling with the tea leaves, darkening to a tannin slippery mud.

John rests at the table, sipping his brew, staring at the window but not through it. The undrunk cup of tea sits on the other side, damning in it's fullness.

**16**

On Saturday nights, John gives himself a treat.

A bottle of decent wine, normally Sancerre. He drinks it slowly, enjoying the feeling of the liquid carousing over his tongue, bringing his throat to goosebumps.

When half the bottle is gone, Sherlock appears ... a spectre of Sherlock, the one he has been searching for in the alcohol. It's voice isn't quite right but it's attitude certainly is,

"Good Lord look at you John," Sherlock curls his lip, "is this what humanity has come to?"

Sherlock swipes the bottle from the table, wraps his lips around the head and takes a gulp (Spectre Sherlock does this).

"Sherlock."

"John." Sherlock is next to John on the settee, legs splayed, smiling, all languor and heat,

"Mmm, John," he rubs his cheek against John's shoulder, almost hard enough to bruise. Sherlock's affection is as psychopathic and terrifying as his genius, and his anger.

John looks at Sherlock,

"You're ... back?"

"Only for a while. It takes on average one hour for one unit of alcohol to leave the body. So if you keep drinking, we have until morning."

"Of course," John takes the bottle from Spectre Sherlock and takes a long gulp, "So. Why did you die?"

Sherlock's grin has everything about it of the Cheshire cat, "Because you were naughty, John, very, very naughty..."

It goes along those lines until the second bottle has been drained. Spectre Sherlock's 'drinking' isn't massively helpful, and John has managed to drink a lot.

He doesn't know how but he feels sick and woozy, can't stand up, cannot _be. _Spectre Sherlock has disappeared into the darkness, without even a goodbye, an_d _the walls are soldiers marching in on John and all there is is silence oh god where is his gun) -

"John."

A hand, with infinite care but absolute insistence, removes the bottle from his grasp.

John can't force his eyes to focus, half asleep, struggles ineffectually, mumbling incoherent statements of desolation, is vaguely aware of being guided through the sitting room, and laid down gently in Sherlock's bed.

"Sleep, sleep..."

He manages to open his eyes, only to slits, watching the bleary world through those tiny portals. The skin behind his eyes feels like crushed velvet.

"Hush."

Dark. Light. Blue.

In his stupor, John has enough, just enough sense to anchor himself, clinging like a limpet, to wrap himself around salvation. And salvation does not resist, but falls into him, plunging together into the abyss, they exist in the present perfect tense, exist together in solitude, John's mind has transcended he thinks _I__ believe in God _for the first time in his life. And everything is sanctified, everything is incandescent, everything -

He wakes. Horribly hungover. Alone. Mouth, dry, disgusting, he tastes the wine on the back of his tongue, stale.

Roles over, to check the clock on his nightstand.

Paracetamol, two, sat neatly on a paper napkin. A glass of tepid water, relatively fresh.

On the floor by the bed, a plastic bowl, big enough to vomit into.

The curtains are carefully drawn.

When he finally finds the strength to venture into the kitchen, there are two slices of bread in the toaster, waiting.

John stands, in the middle of the living room, in bewildered misery. Complete misery.

There is a tree of hope. He read about it, once, a long time ago. It is a beautiful tree. But, all trees age, and stop giving forth blossoms. John can't visit that tree again, hoping for fruit. He would die, starving.

**20**

When John returns from his walk, Mycroft is lounging in his armchair,

"Good morning, John." he smiles, without teeth. Anthea is in the corner, eyes on her phone.

John sighs, "Hullo Mycroft. To what do I owe the ... visit?"

He shuffles to the radiator and gives the valve a few ineffectual twists. So, _so _cold, always.

Mycroft picks something up from the floor beside him. A brown manila envelope, sealed. And a thin, white envelope, also sealed.

"For you."

Suspicious, John moves to take them.

"What are these?" he gives the brown envelope an experimental shake.

"Those, John, are Sherlock."

A twist in his gut, John's offal churns sickeningly,

"What?"

Mycroft sighs, "In the white envelope, a cheque. Since his rehabilitation, Sherlock had little to spend his money on. Rent, body parts, and the occasional sartorial indulgence were about it." His eyes flick subtly to Sherlock's coat (Aquascutum, John now knows, and incredibly warm, incredibly soft) which is still hanging on the back of the door.

"Don't spend it all on penny sweets."

"And in this one?" John holds up the thicker, brown envelope.

Mycroft stands, fastening his suit with a swift jerk of his fingers, "I don't know. It was found in his PO Box. The note attached said only, 'For JW' - One assumes you were the only JW in his life, he wasn't exactly a socialite - and 'Open on pain of death'."

John frowns, "You could have opened it. He's hardly going to play the violin at you_now_."

"Ah yes," Mycroft smiles enigmatically, "Still..."

With a crisp nod, he leaves the room. John turns.

"Anthea?" She's still typing away, "Mycroft's gone."

"Oh." She looks towards the door, "Right."

And then, John is alone. He places both envelopes on the mantelpiece, rings his voicemail, and burrows into Sherlock's bed, fully clothed.

"John, this is Sherlock. Holmes. I require assistance with something. Come home. Bring carbohydrates."

**21**

It's Monday. John has spent the weekend looking through newspaper clippings.

In one, he and Sherlock are at a Scotland Yard event. He can't remember what; a media something-or-other. Sherlock has his back very pointedly towards Donovan. He's leaning down towards John, like a bat swooping down on its prey. John is smiling, the sort of smile that can only be described as indulgent or, if one were in a different mood, adoring.

John returns to this clipping, again and again. Something about it ... important. He goes to the bathroom, takes the clipping, analyses the uplifted smile and tries to replicate that feeling, that face. Imagines Sherlock looking down at him, lecturing him, Sherlock giving him that rare only-because-you're-my-blogger laugh.

_You're the most human person I know._

And now you're gone, I'm the most inhuman person I know.

He tries the smile, again. Closes his eyes. Opens them. Again. Imagines Sherlock brushing hair out of his eyes, staring into a microscope. Closes his eyes. Opens them. Again. Sherlock, forgetting John is watching and doing a little dance after solving a particularly tricky case. Closes. Opens. Again. Sherlock.

_I don't have friends. Just one._

Closes. Opens. He's crying. Silently. He hadn't even noticed. His tonsils ache.

Closes. Lets his body sink to the bathroom floor. His silence breaks, giving way to harsh, choking sobs that crack the silent air as if it were fine china.

He cries so much his tears ruin the ink of the picture, distorting Sherlock's face beyond all recognition.

**22**

John opens the slim, white envelope. He feels brave enough now.

A cheque, just as Mycroft had said. Coutts, of course, where else would Sherlock bank. A ridiculously large amount of money.

John carefully slides the cheque back into its envelope and places the envelope back on the mantelpiece.

He picks up the brown envelope and takes it to the sofa. Runs his fingers along the edge. Turns it over, testing its weight.

"Just open it," he whispers. And he does.

Inside ... several pieces of paper, and a photograph, which flutters to the ground. John picks it up.

Sherlock. _Child _Sherlock. John had never thought of Sherlock as having a childhood, he feels as if he's being shown a very secret part of the man. In the photo Sherlock must be eight, perhaps ten. Standing on a bridge in the countryside, the river behind him long, steel green water. He's wearing a duffle coat.

He stares into the camera lens with a glacial expression, arms folded tight across his chest.

John huffs a little laugh, "Sherlock."

He puts the photo at the centre of the mantelpiece. Maybe he'll buy a frame.

He puts the other pieces of paper back into the envelope without unfolding them. He wants to draw out these pieces of Sherlock's life. He'll take them like antibiotics, in doses, to preserve the pleasure.

**23**

In June, John leaves the house for his morning walk, and is surprised to find he doesn't need a coat.

In celebration, takes one piece of paper from the manila envelope with him. Sits on a bench in Regent's Park, overlooking the river.

Unfolds it. Sherlock's writing, the spidery writing sprawling across the page, ink spots marring it's surface.

John smoothes the paper carefully out on his lap, willing his hands not to shake.

_'The technical term, I believe, is misanthrope. I have also heard egoist, isolate, recluse, solipsist. I find none offensive._

_Looking back, I have to assume I always was those things. As a youngster I would hide myself in secluded spots to spy on the world. Extremely Ralph Izzard. Frightening at first - being so detached. I often wondered if I was somehow faulty, a misprint on the page of humanity._

_Then, perfect solitude. Paradise in deduction. I truly believed I could contentedly (if not happily, but of course my definition of happiness is at a certain end of the spectrum) spend my life that way._

_Now, I have realised (and this is indeed a revelation, John) that there are some parts of a person that do not die._

_And when it comes to eternity, I think I'd prefer some company. Your beauty is lost on some, but found by me._

_Yours,_

_SH'_

John smears away his fat tears before they can ruin the page. He smoothes the paper over and over with his hands, caressing.

He sits on the bench, watching the slow-winding water, for a long time. The thick lump of sorrow in his throat is still pulsing sadly. But, with these words in his hands, he feels a little less alone.

**24**

He decides that he'll to write to Harry. Can't face seeing her, but knows it's right to make the effort:

_I've found someone, who thinks I am a very separate person, and I think he wants to kiss me like they kiss in films. Unfortunately, he's dead._

No, that won't do. He tears it up. Inspiration, he needs ...

John goes to the manila envelope on the mantelpiece, and chooses a piece of paper to discover. Only two left, now.

Back at the table, he takes a deep, anticipatory breath, and unfolds it. A4.

_24th December 2011_

Sherlock's scratchy writing, again. Christmas Eve. What had they been doing? Ah, John had been packing to go and see his mother.

He had invited Sherlock, who declined: "I prefer to be alone. I may visit with Mycroft, if I can stand it." And Sherlock had gone to his desk, for all the world absorbed in making notes on a case. Clearly not.

John began again,

_'24th December 2011_

_Don't leave me, even for a day._

_You seem to have taken everything of me, I have poured myself into, like moving water._

_Sometimes the city moves around me, abstracting, and I know I don't exist._

_In you I exist in the way that other people do: smiles, inside jokes (I've never **had **those, ever), the minutiae of domestic life._

_In a way, it is epic. In a way, it is beautiful._

_Yours,_

_SH'_

And then, what is obviously an addendum, added later - how much later? - in a desperate, hurried pen,

_'It is the tongue of death looking for a mouth._

_Speak with Molly.'_

John waits for tears to announce themselves. They threaten to, stinging at the corners of his eyes. But today, he is able to hold them back. Amongst the tangled weeds of sadness, and the bitterness of another lost opportunity to be close with Sherlock, there's the siren song of a mystery.

_Speak with Molly?_

Of course he will.


	3. Chapter 3

Autumn:

**25**

John spends the evening nursing a glass of Chardonnay and thinking about how he'll approach Molly, about what she might know. He decides that perhaps Sherlock has confided another manila envelope to her, to give to him, at the right time.

The next morning John finds himself in a cold sweat of anticipation. He catches sight of his reflection in the window of the bus. His eyes are shining, pupils dilated wildly. John sways, dangling from a cliff of awakenings.

Other passengers sidle away from him.

Arriving at St Barts, he pokes his head around the door of the lab without knocking.

Molly is standing, still, looking out of the window into the car park.

"Hello, John."

She turns, slowly. Something about her looks ... different. The usual eager, bright Molly has vanished, replaced by a tense and vigilant gaze. And, though she is looking at John and offering a concerned smile, part of her is ... elsewhere. As if there is an alarm ringing somewhere in the building, that John can't hear.

John smiles back, unsure._Molly is one of the good folk_, he reminds himself,_nothing to worry about here_.

"Hi," he ventures a little wave, "Sorry, it's been ages, hasn't it? How are you?"

"Tolerably well," her tight, distracted expression doesn't change – she's looking somewhere over John's right shoulder, "Industrious. Persevering."

She takes a breath as if to speak again, stops, frowns. "Um … how's the head?" She looks confused at her own question, then enlightened, "the head in the fridge! I lent it to Sherlock. Against my better – oh! Yes. How is it?"

John shakes his head, utterly bewildered, "Mycroft's men cleared it out. It was getting rather, you know, rotten."

Molly looks faintly ill at this, but nonetheless says, "Surely that was the point!"

John takes a step forward, "Molly, are you OK?"

"I'm fine!" She holds out her arm as a barrier, " But I'd feel a damn bit better if you refrained from drinking an entire vineyard every weekend, and took a bit more care of yourself. Look at you!"

John's stunned, "I didn't know you … cared, so much. Wait, how did you _know t_hat?"

Molly pauses for a long while. When she speaks, her voice is blank, almost disembodied from her self,

"John, I care more than you can know."

They stand in silence. Molly's posture has deflated, as if someone has cut her strings. She looks at John sadly, her brow creased in sympathy. John's not entirely sure what's going on, but he's _going _to get what he came for.

He clears his throat, "Sherlock. He left me a note. It said, 'Ask Molly'. Have you any idea what that means?"

Twisting the hem of her lab coat in her hands, Molly shrugs, "No, I'm afraid. Before … it happened. Before, he was here and said he was worried something was going to happen to him. Not really news, though, that."

John nods, "And that's all?"

"Sorry," She sounds miserable, "I wish I could give you the answers that you deserve." John watches her closely. Not a flicker. He rubs his eyes, exhausted suddenly.

"Bye then," John reaches for the door handle. Molly's staring over his right shoulder again,

"A bientot, John."

He shuts the door.

John decides to walk home. What had he been hoping for? What, exactly?

He kicks the fallen leaves that rustle round his ankles in a russet tide, crushing them underfoot.

**26**

John spends the next few days worrying about Molly.

Her distracted gaze reminds him of a spaniel listening for rabbits in a field, staring off into the middle distance, head cocked, leg bent. That was Molly.

He'd thought that she'd been talking. She hadn't. She'd been _listening_.

John thought about the sounds in the room: the soft hum of the equipment, the typing of keyboards. Nothing.

He paces the living room. The phone rings,

"John, hi,"

It's Molly.

"How are you?"

He's silent.

"John, this is just ... to apologise, about last week. I wasn't feeling very well, bit distracted, no sleep, too much coffee. Woo. Look, I know you want Sherlock back, we all do, believe me, but ... he's dead. John?"

John bites his lip. Puts the phone down.

Of course. Dead. He's going crazy. He saw Sherlock, dead, head impossibly crushed, hair stuck to the pavement by his heavy blood.

He doesn't cry. He's beyond it, now.

**27**

On his birthday John wakes up early, eager, and gives himself another of Sherlock's slips of paper as a present.

He settles cross-legged on Sherlock's bed, opening it slowly, with careful fingers.

_'Dear John,_

_Isn't it strange, to be writing you a 'Dear John' letter, when I mean quite the opposite?_

_Today, I have been reading Aeschylus , and thinking about heroes._

_I have come to the conclusion that you are a hero. Brave, non-conventional, thick. Apologies for the latter, but it is a recognised character trait. Look at Achilles._

_I imagine you believe, now, that life isn't really heroic. That it's rather tragic. This is true._

_But today, the sun is shining.'_

John pauses, looks out of the window. It is indeed. He reads on.

_'And that's important. I believe in pathetic fallacy. Thus, if the sun is shining you have an obligation to follow it, to happiness. Particularly today.'_

John gasps. No, today, how could it - shaking his head, he skims the rest of the letter.

_'Another conclusion I have come to, recently, is that expressing one's emotions does not make one ... weak, or hysterical. I've found that once one gives in, emotion becomes seductive. A shrieking heart in an unwholesome beast._

_I'm enjoying it._

_And there, John, endeth the lesson. Blow out the candles._

_Yours ever,_

_SH'_

John is not a conspiracy theorist, and he's sure he's half-mad through grief and loneliness. Spectre Sherlock confirms this, every Saturday night.

But _this_. He reads the note again. Too much, too much to be coincidence, to be anything but a message. Sherlock may have taken formal leave of life but somehow, he has been snatched from the stormcloud of Moriarty's insanity.

John crumples the paper in his fist. Stands. He's galvanized, jaw set grimly.

Elated, and enraged.

**28**

_Let me not notice all around the dying leaves fall._

John has been looking for signs, everywhere he goes. He's a tracker dog, following any scent that seems fruitful.

Molly. He visits her every day, at different times. Sits in the corner of the lab, or the morgue, arms folded, and watches her.

At first, she's visibly freaked out by this, but soon she's making him a cup of tea and plonking a couple of garibaldi biscuits on a napkin in front of him.

"Just keep out of the way, then."

She picks up a saw and begins to separate a man's sternum.

John coughs, trying not to gag, "It's like woodwork at school."

Molly grins, "Yep. But more fun."

John soon abandons this line of enquiry. Molly is clearly back to whatever passes as 'normal' in her world. Whatever was going on that first day, it has passed.

John lurks in the cemetery rather a lot. He knows not why - perhaps if Sherlock's grave is here, so too is Sherlock? He doesn't get much detective work done, however, as he's almost magnetically drawn to Sherlock's grave.

"Morning, Sherlock. Still here?"

He feels much brighter, with purpose. Strange, he thinks, in more lucid moments, to at once believe and disbelieve that Sherlock is dead.

If hell exists on earth this must be it. This purgatory of love and loss, the endless search as the leaves of autumn scuttle up to his halting feet, struck into burned brown and ochre by an early frost. Stripped from umbilical cords to skate across the pavements.

They host upon his shoes as if including John in their great fall, and he cannot participate in their game. He has already found a place to hide and decompose.

With time, with each increasingly stiff clamber up the long enneads of stairs to his cold and empty-aired flat, his hope declines.

John plants bulbs at Sherlock's grave. He can't pass this task in silent dignity or cheerful, bloodless banter.

He sweats and grunts, corporeal, and mocks his own figure in it's textbook pastoral pose, tending the grave. He realises he has met grief face to face, and lost.

**29**

John is so absorbed in his copy of the Metro that he doesn't hear the assassin until the bone-marrow needle syringe its fang through the shoulder of his jumper.

It jars horribly against the tough trunk of his scapula, and John's back spasms violently. He shudders, screamless, mouth agape as empty brightness falls behind his eyelids and pain ruptures across his back.

Darkness falls, inside John, rises silently up his spine, up to the last floor, his brain. A jar of mustard smashes against the pavement as limp fingers lose his shopping.

When he wakes, John is staring into the ear of a young male nurse, who is wiping at his shoulder with stinking antiseptic.

His quiet words nick John like a razor, scything into his sedated ears. His flat and soothing voice, the lazy notes of reassurance,

"You're awake, good ... is it hurting?" His eyes are kind, so sympathetic.

John has enough energy to nod.

"I'll crank up the morphine."

John gurgles, what might be a thank you, shredded through his tongue.

"You're lucky to be alive. A bloke fended off your attacker before he could get _too _much poison into you. He called an ambulance, stayed with you til it came. Kept your heart beating."

John's eyes roll wildly, he croaks, trying to ask _who, who saved me? _It comes out as a dull whimper.

The nurse smiles, and leaves.

John watches the shadows, tasting rusty blood in the back of his throat. He's alive. Alone, tormented, but alive. This might break warmer souls, who need sympathy and wide smiles, and gestures of love.

But now, John is beyond life's petty goals. Bowed down, bent low, but never, ever broken. A baby can survive outside the womb at 29 weeks. _So too_, John thinks, _can I_.

The police come to take his statement. John draws in a deep, firm breath, and sits up.

**30**

John is discharged from the hospital after a week. He's sick of the stink of antiseptic and the relentless cheer of the staff, keen to get back to his safe routine of morning walks, reading and visiting Sherlock's grave.

He stumbles out of the cab, catching his toe on the lip of the pavement. Looks up at 221B. Sighs.

As he opens the door, John notices an envelope wedged in the letterbox. Exhausted, he doesn't even think as he opens it.

A syringe.

"God!"

It falls from his hands and clatters to the floor. John stares at it, panting.

Then he notices it, a tag around the plunger, a small note. He peers at it,

"Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay To change your day of youth to sullied night;  
>And all in war with Time for love of you,<br>As he takes from you, I engraft you new."

John unwraps the tag, which he pockets. He picks up the syringe in his thumb and forefinger, and flings it in the rubbish bin.

Looks up and down the quiet street. Nothing, just a tabby cat sidling along the opposite side, pressed against the wall.

Inside, John sits and reads the note again.

It's Shakespeare.

Probably. Maybe Marlowe.

"Mmmm", John reads it again. He has just enough secondary school Shakespeare to get the gist ... "Where time fights with decay ... to change your youth to ... age? I'll fight time, I'll ...?"

John scowls,

"Well, thanks, that makes _no _sense."

Later on, awake in Sherlock's bed and reading the notes of an old, solved case, John looks up sharply, "Idiot. The syringe is a scalp. Not a threat. It's _a s_calp."

Clearly, someone is looking after John. John thinks of Mycroft and, in a moment of animal-instinct self preservation, stops thinking at all.

**31**

John may be stale in the heart but still, he doesn't want to die alone. He's aware that he isn'_t entirely _broken. After all, Sherlock was a sociopath and he still managed to come to the conclusion that what most makes life worth living, is someone loving you.

Well, he might've been getting there.

Women like John. This one certainly does. They meet in Tesco, on one of his better days. The dull, deep ache in his shoulder has faded, and he's just put a (rare, admittedly) wash on, so is wearing crisp, fresh clothes.

Her name is Gilly. She's a Benefits Supervisor. John's not sure what that means, in real terms. Probably as much and as little as Consulting Detective.

**32**

**33**

**34**

John spends the next three weeks in a coma of Gilly.

They have dinner together, walk around Hyde Park. Gilly laughs at John's weak jokes. He kisses her, sometimes, briefly on the mouth. His lips tightly closed, and hard. It is no more and no less fulfilling than being alone - it simply requires that he doesn't break down and sob in her presence.

He wonders why she puts up with this; has she been used so badly in the past that his brand of non-violent abuse is acceptable to her? At least she's undemanding.

On Thursday afternoon he pops out to buy a pint of milk. He leaves Gilly in the living room, fiddling about with her phone. He's only gone five minutes, ten at most.

She's standing by the mantelpiece.

Immediately John's eyes flick to the envelope,

_I hope you don't have a baby in here..._

"What are you doing?"

She raises her eyes to John's, they're swollen and red with tears.

"Who is she?" she brandishes a piece of paper at him, waving it angrily, "Who is she? Your girlfriend? An ex? _Who?"_

John shakes his head, holds out his hand in demand, "Give me the letter. _Give me_, the bloody letter." He has no thought of embarrassment, of explanations, just knows that the letter is his, the memory is his, and she has no right to it.

"Tell me! I've been ... falling in _love_ with you, and you - you -" she breaks off, beside herself, "I mean Jesus, I feel sick!"

She purses her lips. Raises her eyebrows. Holds up the paper and - voice vibrating with rage - begins to read in a stilted, halting voice.

_'Dear John._

_The greatest epiphany of my life is that I am starting to know happiness. Maybe for the first time. I feel warm, and (occasionally, when tired) kind and, yes, even rotund. Albeit spiritually._

_I am too often pleased with myself, I know. My laughs like cackles are a reminder of where I have been, of how bad I have been. But I'm pleased with us. I'm pleased with who you have made me._

_You are reading this because I'm gone, which puts a damper on that. I cannot cling desperately to hope because that would be unfair to both of us. It would prevent reality. I hear you. I understand. But equally I cannot destroy hope, inwardly or outwardly, because it would destroy myself._

_I am not closing any of the myriad doors in this universe. I am bored of control. I am open to whatever is to come and I know I'll be surprised. I know I will remember the kindness you have taught me._

_Yours Ever,_

_SH'_

John looks up at the ceiling. His brimming eyes don't tremble or spill.

Then his voice like a deadly weapon, measured guillotine, easily delivers these last words to Gilly, standing before him snivelling, "Get. Out."

**35**

A voicemail from Lestrade:

_'John, news! If you could call me back – oh, bollocks. John?_

_Sherlock's been acquitted. Finally, no appeals, he's in the clear. Isn't that wonderful?_

_Every single one of his cases was proved correct. God you can't believe how relieved - sorry, obviously not about me. But still, he'd be pleased, wouldn't he?'_

A long pause.

_'Well … that's all. See you, hopefully.'_

John rolls over on the sofa, twisting his blanket around himself like a cocoon.

"Tell his grave."

**36**

It's raining, and John shakes a small shower of water from his parka as he arrives back at 221B. He enjoys the blooming blue smell of the rain, and has been wandering aimlessly around London for hours.

The entire house is still.

John fiddles with the radio, which sparks to life, delivering the low tones of Radio 4 into the gloom as he potters around.

Beans on toast, a poached egg, some paprika. He reads the paper as he eats, as a distraction. Later, he will pour himself a glass of wine, and watch the rain fall darkly on Baker Street.

Leaning his forehead against the window, he notices a tramp resting against a lamp post outside, bundled in coats, face obscured by a broad-rimmed hat. The man favours John with a nod, before moving on with surprisingly sprightly footsteps.

John pities him for a moment. Before realising that he is just as alone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Note from Author (addendum after first posting): thank you so, so much to people who have taken the time to review this, you have no idea how appreciated it is after writing til the early hours on so many nights! All and any reviews welcome!**

**Just a warning about this chapter. There is angst. A lot. A GREAT deal. **

**Winter**

**37**

John doesn't tend to receive post. All his bills and admin are done online, and he prefers the immediacy and relative anonymity of email. Nobody writes. Why on Earth would they?

So when the postman hands him a package, to be signed by one John H Watson, early one morning in the middle of the week, it's certainly a surprise. And John pulls a little 'eh?' face as he carries it upstairs and deposits it on the table.

John holds it with a tentative fingers. It's a normal temperature, no ominous ticking, that's reassuring.

He huffs a breath. It looks innocuous enough, but then again the last thing deposited anonymously through his letterbox had contained a dirty bloody syringe.

John takes the risk, and takes the package back up the stairs.

John's noticed that when dealing with things he predicts are going to be difficult, he makes a cup of tea as a comfort blanket.

In Afghanistan, he'd found himself leading boys out, _boys_. Downing pints like they were water, just out of Sandhurst and Blackheath. University students, not soldiers. God he'd needed tea then, made it in his tranger religiously, every morning, bitter black stuff. But it was tea. The familiar tang of tannin, the warmth through his belly, even against the oppressive heat of an Afghan summer, the familiar taste of calm.

Anything to calm the terror of taking soldiers who had been children mere weeks ago, out to active service.

Now, he reverts to tea, as he always does. As a comma in life, a moment of pause and comfort and gathering together of the self.

John harnesses the whisper of panic in his mind, "At ease," he murmurs, taking a sip from his cup.

"Oh well, nothing for it," and he puts his tea down and tears open the package, pawing through the padding, to reveal it's innards.

A … little statue, of some sort.

John allows himself a flip little smile, "Anticlimactic."

He scrutinises it - it's cast bronze, he can tell that much, but what on earth is it a statue _of_? A sort of lion, dragonish thing, with a circular, open mouth and a fearsome glare. John turns the statue over in his hands, traces the words etched on the bottom, _Made in Singapore._

Singapore? He knows next to nothing about Singapore. Has never travelled there. Has no friends, or even acquaintances, there.

He turns to Google, browsing through the first few pages of search results: Singapore Heritage Centre, plenty of tourism sites, a couple of articles about the growing financial sector in the country. And then, something that _does _pique his interest:

"Singaporean drug cartel, See Tong, brought to knees."

John reads the article thoughtfully. It's badly translated and melodramatic, but very recent.

He skims through it again: "Mysterious hero vanishes into the night, accepting no reward."

John gives the little statue one last perusal, and decides it will look well on Sherlock's windowsill. He places it there.

"No, actually, that's slightly creepy," he feels like the bloody thing's watching him. Knowing how his life seems to have turned out, it probably_ i_s.

He turns the statue slightly, so it's not staring directly at his head.

Two days later, another package. The postman gives him a streetwise nod, "Been doing some shopping, then? Never normally have anything for you."

John mumbles something about Amazon, and shuts the door as quickly as he can without seeming too rude.

Inside, a miniature Eiffel Tower made of cheap plastic, the sort you could buy at any street stall. Paris. Obvious. John puts it on the window behind the kitchen sink.

More interestingly, a macaroon wrapped in expensive looking tissue paper.

"Hmm."

Immediately, John turns to his computer, and Google. He taps the keys thoughtfully.

_Paris; crime; solved_

A few generic press releases from Police Nationale, but little else. Some Poirot clips from YouTube.

_Paris; crime; dead_

"Aha..." on the fourth page, John clicks, "Crime Lord Alphonse DuPointier, found dead in his bathtub. Cause of death unknown."

Apparently a man dressed all in black was seen leaving the scene. The French journalist calls him 'The Dark Knight'.

"No imagination," mutters John. He sniffs the macaroon suspiciously. Pistachio.

He eats it with his next cup of tea. It's delicious.

Two days later, another. This time he opens it without pause. A pair of cufflinks, they look like ivory, in an exotic design he has never come across before. No identifying marks.

It takes an afternoon of trawling around jewellery dealers in Mayfair before he hits on something. The well-groomed, slightly oily looking man behind the counter sniffs at John's tatty parka and beanie, but quickly becomes interested when John unwraps the cufflinks.

"Ohhhhhh, yes. How sweet. From Mali, I should think. Beautiful country. A fine example, antique, eighteenth century by the design."

John nods along, "You can tell all that? I have a friend who'd like you."

The man smiles, a flash of gold incisor,"Mmm, oh yes. Here, I have a book," he rummages around under the counter for a second, finding a large, hardback tome, "African artwork is something of an interest of mine, and naturally that extends to jewellery." He flicks through the book's thick pages,

"The design is based on a tribal pattern - Kel Tamasheq, or the Tuareg as you may know them."

He looks enquiringly at John, pointing to a picture of a man swathed in a white headdress, sitting on a camel. John shakes his head, he's never heard of them.

"Well, quite. This pattern denotes ... depending on the context, faithfulness, loyalty or fidelity. It can be given from a warrior to his chief before a battle, or more likely during a battle that is going badly, to reassure the chief that he still has a loyal soldier. It is also given by a husband to his wife, if the husband is to undertake a long journey. To symbolise his plan to return to her. A lovely gesture."

John thanks the man politely, wrapping the cufflinks carefully in their paper. As he leaves, the man says,

"I do hope you get good use out of them."

John shrugs, "Probably not. All my cuffs have buttons."

When John gets home, he logs straight on to his laptop, and looks up Mali. It takes an hour, but he finds it:

"International slave trading ring's headquarters mysteriously blown up. Police have no leads."

John leans back in his chair. After a while, the laptop's screen goes black. Night rolls in. Foxes fight and mate outside, he can hear them screaming. John sits in the jaundiced light of the lamp post outside. Thinking.

**38**

All is quiet on the Baker Street front.

John buys a shirt that requires cufflinks. Not that he wears shirts, anymore.

But still.

**39**

There is a difference, John has found, between drinking towards oblivion, and drinking towards that fleeting, magical, admittedly delusional state of mind in which he is able to conjure the spectre of Sherlock.

For this, beer won't do. It must be wine or preferably something sweeter. Port, if he can stand the pain. Tonight, port. Sweet and syrupy, like cough medicine, he drinks it by the tumbler, groaning as the thick weight of a headache begins to press behind his eyes.

He pours another, keeping the bottle close to hand, and settles down to watch Downton Abbey on the telly.

Smiles to himself, feeling as if he's conducting a rain dance.

Half of the bottle's downed before Sherlock appears, from his peripheral vision, as if stepping directly from John's optic nerve.

Spectre Sherlock leans against the mantelpiece, all louche, long limbs and dangerous sinew. His hair curls darkly over one eye.

"Alcoholic." But he's smiling, and stealing across the room to collapse next to John on the sofa, disregarding personal space entirely.

The sheen of Spectre Sherlock beats back the imposing night, and John is warmed through, feels his thought processes dissipate like a nimbus cloud. He draws Spectre Sherlock to him, strokes him, constructs him, a miracle.

Spectre Sherlock growls against his neck. Their bodies mould together in the darkness.

He quivers, shaky as a gelding about to take a jump. Feels Spectre Sherlock's lips brush almost imperceptibly against his exposed neck, a kiss. John's skin trembles with happiness.

"I'm not real, John, that's the beauty of it," Spectre Sherlock whispers, "What do you want me to be?"

"If you _were_ real-"

Spectre Sherlock pulls away gently, resting his head on John's shoulder. "Which I'm not, patently."

"You're my fantasy," John objects, "could you not perhaps just-"

"On the contrary, I am your fantasy of_ myself_. You can manipulate me to an extent, but some things are universally true."

"Like what?"

"I am universally unwilling to listen to your stupidities." Spectre Sherlock nuzzles John nonchalantly, smug and satisfied.

"Right. Well _hypothetically_, if you were real ... would you have ... you know. Kissed ... my..." he gestures ineffectually towards his torso, "Kissed me?"

Spectre Sherlock blinks up at him, "I haven't the foggiest, John. I'm not

_real_. Look, I'll prove it."

And with that, Spectre Sherlock transmogrifies into a giant, black moth, as big as a labrador, and flaps gently out of the window.

John awakes to the most disgusting hangover he has ever experienced. He's forgotten to turn the heating on. It's so _very _cold.

**40**

John, after ignoring almost twenty phone calls, grudgingly agrees to have coffee with Harry.

They meet at the Amphitheatre Restaurant, at the Royal Opera House. It's warm and comfortable, and Harry leverages this slyly, managing to turn 'coffee' into 'lunch' without John really noticing. He finds himself tucking into pan-fried salmon with pickled cauliflower, wondering why he eats beans on toast every day when there's this sort of food to be had in the world.

He manages to keep the sour look on his face, nonetheless.

Harry chats inanely about her job, Clara, the people at AA. John supplies grunts every now and again, to show he's compos mentis.

She pauses, fork halfway to her mouth. John studiously avoids her eyes - he forgot to grunt at something, he realises, and has attracted her attention.

"John ... how are you? Is everything ... alright?"

John sighs, he knew this was coming.

"I'm _fine_, Harry. Just, you know, muddling along."

"You look exhausted."

"I spend most of my life sleeping!"

"Excessive sleep is a sign of depression, you know," she finally takes her mouthful, talking through the spinach, "and you're incredibly isolated. It hurts to see you living such a half life."

John lays down his cutlery with a sharp thud, "I am fine, Harry. I am where I want to be in my life."

Harry frowns, "Living with a ghost?" she asks.

And John nods.

"Quite."

**41**

Tonight, John dreams. Oh, he dreams.

The first time he met Sherlock. _Iraq, or Aghanistan?_

The first time he felt like that, about the man. _Get OFF my sheet!_

He dreams of advancing armies, trench warfare, dreams up Sherlock in a Major's greatcoat, at the head of a cavalry of spirited horses. His sabre drawn, carbines strapped up at his thighs.

The muffled burial beat, afterwards, the faceless soldiers with their moist eyes, straight backs, parade rest.

He wakes, overheated, and is surprised to find his eyes are leaking tears.

**42**

John goes for his morning walk. It's raining. He gets soaked through, everything saturated with water, chilled to the bone.

His teeth begin to chatter, still a mile from 221B. By the time he makes it back to the flat, the sneezing has already begun.

He trudges to Sherlock's bed and, still fully dressed and soaking, throws himself face first onto it. He stays there all day, and into the night, pretending he has drowned.

**43**

Molly comes over. John hasn't invited her, she just appears at his door, at about 2pm. John is _never_ out of the flat at this time of day. And Molly seems certain he's in, banging on the door for five minutes,

"I know you're bloody in there, John Watson!"

A pause. He hears her voice murmuring, must be on the phone. Then,

"Bloody hell, fine! Though I hope you realise how ridiculous this is!"

The banging begins again. Alright, thinks John, the balance of the noise versus having to talk to Molly has just shifted, in favour of Molly. He wraps Sherlock's dressing gown more tightly around himself.

He swings the door open, gives her a glare, and turns back into the flat.

"Oh!" Molly quickly stuffs her phone into her pocket, and follows him inside.

They stand, awkwardly, for a moment. John, shooting daggers, Molly shifting nervously.

She speaks, eventually, "Got you some bits," too bright, too chirpy.

John's eyes flick to the ceiling. He sighs.

Molly reaches into her bag, "Here."

She's holding out an umbrella, "It's an umbrella," she says.

"Um. What?"

Molly continues talking, all of a rush, "So you don't get wet. On your walks? It's Scotts of Stowe. A proper gentleman's umbrella. Um. Apparently."

Realising he's not going to take it from her, she puts it on the table.

"I ... also ... some food. I ... get the impression that you're not really eating enough."

Her phone buzzes in her pocket, and again, like an angry bee. She ignores it, "Um. So. Orange marmalade biscuits."

The biscuits go on the table, next to the umbrella. John likes marmalade ... he resists looking at them.

"And, um, Shropshire cheese. It's got whisky in it." She shudders with delicate distaste. did she buy it for him if she thought it was so horrid?

Molly rummages around in her bag a bit more,

"Aha. There. Don't worry, it's wrapped." She brings out a rectangular package wrapped in brown paper, "Beef wellingtons! From Fortnums, all you have to do is put them in the oven for half an hour."

John stares at Molly. He _really_ likes beef wellington, has he ever told her that? And why on earth is she doing this? He's not had enough social interaction recently to remember how to be polite. So he continues to stand there, silently, scratching his ear absently.

Molly sighs, "I'll just pop it in the fridge."

Her phone buzzes again, a high-pitched trill of irritation. Molly closes the fridge. Checks her phone furtively.

"I'd better go."

She moves as if to give John a hug, but thinks better of it.

"Molly!" John stops her in her tracks, "Thanks."

Molly nods, smiles, gives him a jaunty wave. Her phone buzzes yet again, and as she closes the door behind her, she answers it,

"For god's sake, what's wrong with you? Yes, I'm just leaving. Yes, everything's fine. No, he isn't. No. No. Well you'll have to wait and see won't you? I do not know _why_ I put up with you..."

Her voice gets quieter and quieter as she descends the stairs. John considers the umbrella. Picks up the cheese. He opens the jar and scoops out a bit of it, sucking the crumbling mess off his finger.

Mmm, whisky. He _loves _whisky.

**44**

John eats the biscuits in two sittings. His stomach pleasantly distended, he lies on the sofa savouring the taste of orange marmalade in his molars.

He browses through Sherlock's books, looking for something to entertain himself with before he can get to Gaunts to buy a new job lot of crime thrillers.

"dead every enormous piece

of nonsense which itself must call

a state submicroscopic is-

compared with pitying terrible

some alive individual"

John grimaces. No wonder Sherlock is - _was_ - a bit funny in the head, if this is what he'd been reading.

**45**

The beef wellingtons last slightly longer. John has them for tea on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and the last for a desperate breakfast on Thursday when he's run out of milk. And muesli.

Molly has left a couple of messages, but John doesn't bother to get back to her. He does, however, venture into Fortnums on one of his morning walks, and buys another packet of biscuits.

**46**

Another Saturday night, another binge drinking session to dance in the rain of Spectre Sherlock.

John had been hoping for more teases, more strokes, more closeness. He is denied.

Spectre Sherlock looks grave, "Those who have found their cause are blessed, John. Animal rights, pensions for soldiers, the conservation of the wetlands. The righteous, the evangelists, may be deranged, but their fight restores their belief in goodness."

His gaze bores into John, torturing in its intensity, "What is your cause, John?"

John is uncomfortably aware that Spectre Sherlock is simply quoting the chorus his subconscious has been singing for a few weeks now. But hearing this, from the mouth ... from the _image _of the mouth of Sherlock, is very difficult.

Pain sustains John, digging the fingernails of one hand against the palm of the other.

"You," he pauses, thinking, "Your memory."

Spectre Sherlock raises his chin in challenge, "And what have you done to honour it, exactly?"

John drops his eyes to the floor, ashamed. He finds he has no answer.

Spectre Sherlock supplies one for him, "Nothing. You've shrouded my memory in a dropcloth, and hidden it in a dusty room. And you've created in yourself a shrine to me."

Footsteps ring out as Spectre Sherlock walks across the room, stopping just in front of John. His shoes were Sherlock's favourite pair – black leather, sleek and comfortable enough to run across London in. John looks up, up past Spectre Sherlock's unfeasibly long legs, his compact hips, chest, neck, chin, mouth, to those extra-terrestrial eyes.

"If you want to honour my memory, John Watson, be a man and _live_!"

John is angry, now – his endless ennui, a grey world, his continued devotion, and now this attack - "I've been grieving, Sherlock! FOR you, because - because -" he suddenly realises that he has stood, is toe-to-toe with Spectre Sherlock. He pauses, no, this is … good … cathartic.

"Because you filled my life. Everything that I did, every day, had you inside it, you were the salt in my blood. And once you were gone … it all fell away." He shakes his head, resisting the urge to cry, "I don't know if there's a word for that but 'love'".

Spectre Sherlock's eyes don't have quite the depth of the man himself. But the shape is there, and the colour is better than approximate. And the look in them is enough to make the first tear fall from John's right eye.

Spectre Sherlock touches the tear, gentle now, "What I didn't dare do in my life, dare in yours. Live. Please."

John resists the urge to squirm under the microscopic gaze – reaches up to knits his hand in Spectre Sherlock's hair, a convulsive movement, he doesn't even feel his arm move.

Spectre Sherlock's hands reach around him, stroking against the waistband of his jeans in soft, teasing movements. John hears himself groan, feels his mouth open, panting, his head thrown back neck exposed -

But Spectre Sherlock's skin is wrong. It's too smooth, feels like silicone, and is neither warm nor cool. Room temperature. The temperature of nothingness.

John needs another drink, to ward of reality. He is aware, more than ever, that Spectre Sherlock is _not_ Sherlock, is not even the lingering ghost of Sherlock. That Sherlock, _his_Sherlock, is less even than bones, was burned, is nothing but ash. His vibrant, vital Sherlock is dust.

John's temples scream. He closes his eyes against the almost-perfect face of Spectre Sherlock, who watches him neutrally. And understanding grips him like a wolf-bite, grinding fangs. No Sherlock. No more. Not ever.

And, no longer able to delude himself through alcohol and determination, he opens his eyes.

There's nothing there. There never was.

**47**

_Anything but this_, John thinks miserably, stirring golden syrup into his porridge_, the slow, long degradation into disgusting mediocrity_. It has been days since he has felt even the faintest flicker of hope. His life circumnavigates tragedy, simply by trudging on and on, alone. Without end and with no discernible meaning.

He can no longer claim to be in the first, violent throes of grief. At week 37, John admits to himself, he is belligerently _refusing _to create a life in which Sherlock is not the North Star. His delusion is exposed when he opens the door to 221B and is _still_ shocked to find Sherlock ... not there.

He takes a long walk on Hampstead Heath, where the first thin frost crackles under his boots, and the bare trees roar in a gale. It's four in the afternoon and the pale moon is already risen, appeared over the cityscape, fighting with mournful clouds as they roll. It casts a weirdish light along the sunken roads like grey washboards. The river is as thin and reflective as a scalpel, the light dies, a sinking ship.

Like many of the important moments in John's life, he isn't aware of having made any decision. He buys one packet of pills at Tesco, two at Boots, and one at Superdrug. Does not think about these small purchases, buys a new toothbrush in Superdrug, as if he might use it tomorrow.

John doesn't have it in him to take his wrists, or fashion a noose. He just doesn't, and he knows it. He is, however, able to take an awful lot of pills - urged on by the shrieks and laughter of clubbers wandering past the flat - and that evening, without shaking or crying or thinking, this is what he does.

Slow, methodical. Popping the blister packs, getting four or so in his palm, washing them down with lukewarm water.

For an hour or so, he feels no different. Then, nausea. Crippling, whirling nausea that has him crumpling against the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, eyes shut tight against the bright lights. He lets the chill drift through his bones, through his jumper. His stomach rolls on a sea of stormy drugs. It's a dream, he lives it but doesn't live it.

The taste of sucrose is a film across his tongue, his mouth is impossibly dry. His hands are shaking worse than they ever have done before. It hurts, good god it hurts.

He struggles to his knees, collapses again.

A while later, he realises he might have hit his head. He watched blood pool lazily along the floor, forming a shallow puddle against the bathtub.

_This is it, then, the glorious end of John H Watson. How wretched._

The floor is uncomfortable, his limbs wedged under him awkwardly, but he's too concussed to move. He lies for hours, wishing for oblivion. He vomits, the vomit tastes impossibly sour. He has enough left in him to make sure he's on his front. Oblivion doesn't come.

The sun rises. He misses his morning walk. He passes out, finally, and unconsciousness is blissful, deep and sweet. Unconsciousness tastes like victoria sponge.

To be honest, John isn't surprised when he wakes up.

_People like me simply go on, the donkeys of the world, until we drop in exhausted, disappointed old age._

He is, however, surprised at being in Sherlock's bed. Clean. Warm. Lifting a hand to his still-throbbing head, he finds it neatly bandaged. He's wearing Sherlock's dressing gown over his own boxers, as he prefers.

And, though his entire body aches and his stomach is emptier than he can ever remember, it all feels incredibly _alive_.

He tentatively slides out of the bed, finds he can walk - just about - and makes his way to the kitchen, leaning against the wall for support.

The porridge in the bowl is warm, golden syrup already stirred in perfectly. A pot of English Breakfast sits alongside, one cup already poured, with just a splash of semi-skimmed.

"Oh my God," he breathes, "Oh. Oh my God."

John whirls around, and runs through the house, filled suddenly with a manic energy. He throws open doors, checking the bathroom, the study, even the stairwell. Nothing.

"Sherlock?" The voice of a child lost in a supermarket, he can't help it, "Oh, please ... Sherlock?" Silence.

John's chin trembles with the effort of forcing tears back down his throat. Almost, just a low whine escapes.

He sits heavily down at the table. Deliberately tries to take a mouthful of porridge. It's delicious, but he gags.

John spends the morning lolling on the sofa in a depressed heap. Thus, it's mid-afternoon by the time he notices it: a new envelope on the mantelpiece.

He's not aware of crossing the room, of ripping open the envelope (though later, the detritus will look as though it had been attacked by an angry dog), though he must be doing it, because the paper is there in his hands, and he's reading it:

_'John,_

_If you ever, ever do that again, I will kill you myself to ensure that it is done properly. I will never forget seeing you broken, bleeding. Never._

_Could you not be content, John, with the level of dialogue I was able to __safely__ give you? Was this revenge? Making me to see you as you saw me? If you were trying to force me to come forward, you have achieved, in the worst way possible._

_When you didn't appear for your morning walk, I knew something had happened. You're a creature of extreme habit these days. I did not, however, expect that you had happened to yourself._

_Mycroft was kind enough to do a little research. Interesting shopping list, John Watson. That was when I began to run. No time to don a disguise, or to move subtly. I had to make my way to you. God knows who saw me. Let's hope nobody connected to Moriarty ... they are watching you, still, and closely._

_You're a fool. You may have ruined us both._

_Nevertheless, I'm sorry I couldn't stay to see you wake. The one positive I take from this (grudgingly, you're still a complete twit) is that it seems you miss me rather more than is normal. I am ... relieved._

_But please, John, learn patience. I'm so close, so close to making you - and us - safe again. All I require of you is time._

_Your s Ever,_

_SH'_

Typical Sherlock. Typical John. Sherlock, believing his hints and shadows were akin to a sign screaming: "I'm still here! I still want you!" and John, receiving less than a tenth of the message.

John collapses where he stands. Sherlock has blown out death with a breath. John feels trapped within his own body, needs to scrabble free from his tormented flesh, needs to run, needs to choke, needs to - he gulps, he shakes, and finally, he hugs himself so tightly that his bones creak, and he screams, screams, and screams again.

**48**

He calls Molly on the landline.

"I hate you."

He slams the phone down.

He calls again. A little less furious this time.

"How is he?"

He can hear his own breathing, and hers - can practically hear her panicked pulse.

"Um..." she makes a mouseish squeak, "Who?"

He slams the phone down. Waits to calm a little.

He calls again.

"Sherlock, and don't you dare lie to me. I _know_. That is, I'm certain."

Molly lets out her breath in a whoosh. Her answer is relieved, when it comes, "He's alright, John. He misses you, a lot. Constantly whining. And he never washes up."

John can't help but give away a weak little chuckle, despite his rage.

"Why doesn't he come home?" Plaintive, he hates sounding so needy.

"Still killing. Moriarty's men, all of them. He has to."

John nods, forgetting Molly can't see him.

"You watched me suffer."

"I had to! Sherlock made me!"

"Well, quite."

He slams the phone down.

**49**

John tries to be patient.

**50**

Patience is difficult, John discovers. He has always thought of himself as a relatively patient man. The sort who doesn't need instant gratification in every instance.

The epitome of good grace.

Not so. John spends the next two weeks in the biggest sulk of his life, snapping at anyone he comes into contact with. He kicks a squirrel in Regent's Park.

_How long? _An angry, jealous little voice in his frontal lobe mutters,_ how long?_

He measures out his life in cups of tea.

In these two weeks, John oscillates from soaring relief and joy, to absolute bloody apoplectic rage at Sherlock's machinations. He both hates and loves Sherlock, wants to strangle him, shag him, beat him senseless, wrap him in cotton wool. Wants to kill him so he can't ever, ever pretend to die again.

But mostly, he wants to see him.

**51**

John wakes to his alarm. Sherlock. Always. Always the first thought of a new day.

He stretches, slowly, opening his eyes creakily, allowing the tepid light to infiltrate slowly. A beep from his phone. A new voicemail message.

"John." John's eyes snap open, "Could you convene to the kitchen, please. I … well, yes ..."

John's mouth goes dry, his breathe in panicked little pants.

"No, old voicemail, caught up in the system, oh god," he can't stop his eyes from flicking towards the bedroom door.

"... I have a surprise for you. Though you might have guessed, by now. Kitchen, as soon as is convenient. This is Sherlock. Holmes."

And John _flies_ to the bedroom door, tearing it open.

"John."

Thinner, so pale, John can see the skull beneath the skin. And exhausted. But his eyes. This is no Spectre. This is_ him._

John draws a sharp breath. The syllable of his pulse shatters. Time scatters. Motionless, John feels his consciousness slip away, and all that's left in his body is the moment at which he sees Sherlock.

As his eyes begin to fail him and the world slides out of view like magma, there are arms around his shoulders, which John leans into, this is all he thinks of, beatification.

"John. You're alright, you're alright."

Sherlock bears him to the carpet, arms still around him like a sling, and they sit, and rock together, around each others necks in one anguished knot.

There will be time, there will be time.

**52**

They settle into an approximation of their old dynamic remarkably quickly, once John has managed to stop sobbing for more than five minutes at a time, and Sherlock has glugged two pints of electrolyte replacing drinks.

John begins to ask questions. Such as:

"Was it absolutely necessary, Sherlock? To pretend to die?"

And Sherlock nods, guileless, looking John straight in the eye, "You'd be dead, if I hadn't."

John accepts this. He must.

"Did you worry about me?"

To which Sherlock answers, "Yes, constantly. But once I had surveillance running, less so."

John grits his teeth. He goes into the bedroom and retrieves the little Singaporean statue, brandishes it at Sherlock, "It _is _watching me, isn't it?

Sherlock has the decency to look faintly admonished.

"How many people did you have to kill?"

Sherlock is silent, focusing on whatever is on his laptop screen.

"Sherlock?"

"You are worth the lives of infinite men, John."

"I-"

Sherlock snaps the laptop shut, "This conversation is over," and he removes himself from the room.

A moment later, John's phone buzzes. He looks. Sherlock.

"87. Approximately. I believe this makes me a serial killer."

John texts back,

"You're still Sherlock. Odd, lovely, Sherlock."

Ping, a response.

"I am making what is called a 'smiley face'."

On the anniversary of Sherlock's death, John celebrates by making two cups of tea.

Sherlock celebrates by taking a sip, and spitting it out.

"The milk is off."

And John celebrates by donning his parka and going to Tesco. For the first time, Shanelle behind the till sees the smile of the man she'd thought_ couldn't _smile. It's almost eerie.

Sherlock, left at home, celebrates by Googling methods of embalmment. Then he celebrates by thinking about John. Rather a lot. Then he celebrates further by Googling, "How do be an extremely good kisser."

Later that evening, both celebrate by watching Blue Planet together on John's laptop. They sit unreasonably close given the size of the sofa.

They don't quite hold hands, but a good deal of brushing of fingers goes on, and John's stomach feels like it's doing an Irish jig. It's wonderful. Sherlock is clearly panicking, quietly, internally. But he does extremely well, fidgeting only minimally. And he doesn't pull away, crucially, he allows it.

_No rush, _John thinks, _there will be time._

John is unsure where to sleep, the first night. He dithers at the sitting room door.

Sherlock doesn't look up from his note-taking.

"Go to my room, John."

John bites his lip, nervous, "Um-"

A sharp glance, "I can deduce you, if it will help, but neither of us can really be bothered, can we? You _want_ to go to my room, you will _end up _going to my room. Let us just ... take the short route to that inevitability."

Sherlock's gaze softens a little as he takes in John in his faded blue t-shirt and boxers, barefoot, hair still damp from the shower and sticking up in a riot of fluff and wet.

"I'll be there shortly, John."

And he is, within ten minutes.

The second night, they move on from lying rigidly next to each other like cardboard figures.

John sits up, rests his elbows on his knees.

"What's the dog-lion-dragon thing?" he asks, gesturing to the Singaporean figurine on the windowsill.

Sherlock glances over. Sighs. Sits up too, cross-legged in the almost-dark.

"It's a Merlion, or Singa-Laut. It's the mascot of Singapore."

Sensing John is not going to sleep in the imminent future, Sherlock continues, "It's not a dog-lion-dragon, it has the head of a lion and the body of a fish. Actually."

John grins, "Ah, yes, that well-known combination. Silly of me not to realise that-"

A hand cuts him off, warm, touchable, pressed against his lips. Sherlock's voice is a combination of irritated and amused,

"If you let me _finish. _The body represents the origins of Singapore as a small fishing village. The head represents it's original name - Singapura - which means 'lion city'."

He keeps his hand over John's mouth, effectively preventing any interruption to his monologue.

"There are many heraldic animals combined of two species," Sherlock's other hand slides over John's shoulders, and begins to slowly press him down onto the bed. John's eyes widen, but he doesn't resist.

"For example," Sherlock continues, bringing John to rest, supine, against the pillows, "the Calopus has the body of a wolf, the head of a cat and goat's horns. I imagine it has trouble getting around."

John snorts a laugh into Sherlock's hand, earning a look of mild disgust. Nevertheless, Sherlock continues,

"Or the Cerastes, which is a serpent with no spine, and ram's horns on it's head. Again, not a sprinter."

John is listening, interested, but is acutely aware of Sherlock's arm underneath and around him, and the fact that he has somehow been pulled tight against Sherlock's chest.

The hand slips from his mouth, ghosting over his neck and down to his chest, where it rests, stroking softly, as if John were a skittish cat.

"My personal favourite is the Gansas. Primarily because when I first knew you, I read about them, and decided you had been one in a previous life."

John can feel his eyes crinkling up into a smile, as Sherlock's hand strokes with more purpose, and is brave enough to reach his own hand up, wind it into Sherlock's hair, and stroke his scalp with his thumb. They are so very close, breathing each other's air, all he can see is that face.

"A Gansas is a swan-like ... thing. It only has one leg, and one webbed foot, on which it has one sharp talon."

"Oh," John can't help but be disappointed. "And they remind you of me?"

Sherlock hums an affirmative, "Ah, but they're special. Yearly, they migrate to the moon."

And then Sherlock is laughing, softly, snuffling against John's hair. And John melts into a slow tide of love.

Sherlock continues to list and describe mythical animals, and John continues to listen, and they continue to hold each other, and fall asleep gently like that, in each others eyes, in each others skin.

**53**

It's their first case since Sherlock's return. They're planning on going for supper at a Thai restaurant John has found in Shoreditch, once it's over. John thinks this might be the night that they kiss. Judging by Sherlock's almost obsessive dedication to tic tacs over the course of the day, he might think so too. John watches him pop another four into his mouth, with what he can only describe as adoration.

The case is a simple jewel heist, the pursuit of which leads the abandoned warehouse near Limehouse. It's sparse, concrete, and filled with the rubbish of life: crisp wrappers, cigarette butts, old rusted trollies.

Sherlock has the case wrapped up within seconds, and allows John to call Lestrade in to clean up.

Two minutes later, the growl of gravel under thick tyres, outside.

John looks up from his phone, "That was quick..." he looks to the door, then to Sherlock.

Sherlock stands from where he is crouching, still examining the hole in the floor where the jewels were stashed. His eyes meet John's, and there is something of a red flag in his glance.

Far too simple.

John hears the release of a manual safety catch. Things, he senses, are about to go very badly, very quickly.

Sherlock speaks, his voice bleak and cracking very slightly, a worn out record.

"I am so sorry, John. S-so sorry," he stutters, " I've failed you."

John turns to look and see what Sherlock sees. A man with a gun - isn't it always. A man with the blazing look of a trapped animal in his eyes, a week's worth of stubble, and a slow ooze of blood blooming through his once-white shirt. Despite the obvious injury, he's a large man with big, well-used muscles. John doesn't think he can take him down and save them both.

"He should have been dead." Sherlock shakes his head, "I checked his pulse, I don't know how -"

And John understands. This is Moriarty's last, loyal assassin. A man who should be dead. Who Sherlock got wrong. Of all the bloody things to get wrong.

The man says nothing, his expression doesn't change. Not here to gloat, just to finish the job. A mercenary. He moves towards them, slow as an adder in the sun, and the two men find themselves being backed slowly together, towards the wall.

John holds out his hand in plea, "Don't, please. Your captain's gone, what would be the use?" But he's a soldier, he knows, the overriding compulsion to complete the mission, even when the battle's lost.

The assassin herds them against a cold, concrete wall. John's breath hitches as his shoulder touches Sherlock's arm. John has never faced a firing squad, but he's seen pictures, mostly Soviet, he's even seen videos. It's technical, quick, almost humane. A soldier's death, he thought at the time.

But this is one man, not six, and his hands are shaking. Who will he kill first, John things, will he have to watch Sherlock choke on his own blood?

John tries again, "Please, just talk to me. We can help you … whatever you need, money, a passport, anything."

The assassin shakes his head. He has the look of shell shock about him, and John can see that reason isn't going to get him anywhere at all, the man is numb. John glances at Sherlock, who has retreated to his Mind Palace and is clearly trying to think of a way to get them out of this.

John smiles softly, "One last miracle, Sherlock?"

Their eyes meet. John sees panic in Sherlock's.

"You already asked for one last miracle." Sherlock plucks weakly at John's sleeve, his eyes shining and honest, brilliant with the purity of pure despair, "Abracadabra."

The assassin is taking his time, checking his gun over while keeping a wary eye on them.

Sherlock's hand draws down John's arm, and he hooks their index fingers together. Beautiful. John completes: taking his hand. So close they breathe together.

A dull click. John leans in to Sherlock, close, close, so he can see nothing else. Sherlock breathes in, very deeply, meeting John's eyes. John can almost hear Sherlock thinking, _At least we die together. _John nods in affirmation.

Somewhere in his subconscious John's brain remembers a feel of a place in mind – a field of barley and a little group of horses in a rocky corner, a white railway signal, sunshine, the smell of heated grass and John is ten or so, running, pausing in a field of light, happy – his brain makes a circle from that happy place to this moment.

Hard to remember, now that it's all begun and now that it's all over, hard to recall.

When the bullets come, in quick succession, blazing with unnatural light, he's looking at Sherlock. John's pain is nothing but an empty net, transported away. He doesn't feel the metal tearing into his chest and neck, nor the blood begin to trickle slowly and then spurt as arteries shred under the onslaught. He does not differentiate between his blood and Sherlock's, or hear Sherlock's grunt of pain. He does not feel his body jerking, or his heart stutter spasmodically.

He only feels the warmth of Sherlock's breath and chest as they come together, real and warm, the life and death of it, and he falls quietly into the circle of Sherlock's arms and the home of Sherlock's mouth clumsily claiming his own.

Their first, last, dying kiss.


End file.
